Former US Magistrate Robert Cooper dies at 99

Back when Robert E. Cooper was doing the job, being a U.S. magistrate was a bit of an adventure.

Federal marshals sometimes brought defendants by his house at night so he could advise them of their rights and set bail.

Ferry trips to the then-federal prison on McNeil Island for hearings were the norm. Easier to take the judge to the prisoners than bring the prisoners to the mainland.

Cooper could be at the U.S. Courthouse in Seattle one day, Fort Lewis or McChord Air Force Base the next and the federal building in downtown Tacoma the day after that.

Cooper, who in 1971 became the first U.S. magistrate for the Western District of Washington, died Monday. The long-time Tacoma and Gig Harbor resident was 99.

His son, Rob Cooper, said this week his father was fond of his work but loved his family even more.

“His No. 1 thing was family,” the younger Cooper said.

Robert Cooper attended the University of Michigan in the 1930s and was a freshman football player in 1934 when future U.S. President Gerald Ford was a senior.

He was recruited in 2003 by the UM alumni association to write a letter on behalf of all Michigan football players past and present to Ford on the occasion of the ex-president’s 90th birthday.

“At first I balked because I didn’t know him well,” Cooper told The News Tribune in 2006 when Ford died. “After giving it some thought, I realized I may be one of the only surviving players from his day on the team, so I agreed.”

Cooper graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1941 and moved to Tacoma in 1946 after serving in the Army during World War II.

He worked as a lawyer and federal court commissioner for more than two decades before being appointed magistrate, a position created by Congress in 1968 to aid federal judges in disposing of lower-level cases.

He told The News Tribune in 1981, the year he retired, that he handled more than 10,000 misdemeanor cases a year.

Starting in 1974, fish occupied much of his time.

U.S. District Judge George H. Boldt appointed Cooper to be special master to hear cases related to Boldt’s Indian treaty ruling, which affirmed 20 coastal tribes’ rights to half the fish harvest in Washington.

Boldt’s ruling was a contentious one. Cooper recalled to The News Tribune that one hearing had so many fishermen in attendance he moved it from a federal courtroom to the Bicentennial Pavilion, which later was remodeled and renamed the Tacoma Convention Center in 1992.

“The newspaper called him the ‘fish master,’ ” his son recalled.

Cooper also made the papers in 1979 when he handled the arraignments and bail hearings of then-Sheriff George V. Janovich and 14 co-defendants in a racketeering case.

Along the way, Cooper and his wife of 64 years, Jean Cooper, raised four sons. She died in 2008.

Cooper found romance again in 2010 and married Ethel Embree, who died in 2014.

Rob Cooper remembered his father as an athletic man who played handball into his 70s and golf into his 90s. Cooper also was an avid reader, taking his Kindle along on trips, including a vacation to Mexico earlier this year.

His daughter-in-law, Connie Cooper, said Cooper was a by-the-book man.

He moved his family to Gig Harbor years ago after the Tacoma City Council passed an ordinance requiring dogs to be kept on leashes.

“He didn’t want to take his dog on a leash,” she remembered with a laugh. “So he decided to move rather than break the law.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Former US Magistrate Robert Cooper dies at 99."